Faith is often a misunderstood and loosely used term. In fact, I’ve come to believe that the word “trust” is more suitable in helping me to one understand what faith really is. Lots of people have faith if it’s defined as simply believing in something. That definition of faith is what cheapens it and causes it to be made a mockery of in the lives of so many of the supposed “faithful”. Real faith – the kind that saves and transforms lives – is equivalent to trust. It is a total abandonment of our dependence on anything or anyone other than Christ to bring salvation and fulfillment to our lives. It is choosing to live according to what we say we believe. It requires one to yield their thoughts, actions, and choices to His will, even when everything inside of them wants to go a different way. It’s this type of faith that moves God. Some may call it obedience, but I prefer to call it surrender.
When faith is understood and applied in this way, it permeates and transforms us. It molds us as people and guides our choices. It causes us to realize that we are not our own; we were bought with a price and we belong to someone else. We have no right to make decisions and choices that are selfish and ignore the expectations that come with being a child of God.
Transformation is a life-long process that is full of successes and failures, but through the process we realize and accept who we are, and more importantly whose we are, as we seek to base our lives on this realization in every corner of our lives – including our political preferences and choices. To that end, I feel compelled to share the following thoughts with respect to the current presidential campaign.
I consider myself a politically conservative-leaning evangelical Christian, but I have now come to believe that evangelical Christianity in America is far too wrapped up in nationalism and the politics of the political Right. The support amongst evangelicals for the candidacy of Donald Trump is the latest and one of the most egregious examples of this. In Trump, we have an egomaniacal candidate whose campaign success is the unholy offspring of the frustration, anger, and bitterness of various political interest groups (i.e. evangelicals, conservatives, white working class) who feel that their government has abandoned them and that their struggles and voices are being ignored. Trump has rightly sensed the mood of his supporters and has played directly into it with his campaign positions on immigration, trade, and so on. In many ways, Trump speaks to the worst of human nature by exploiting people’s fear and envy, and by emulating and encouraging suspicion and animosity toward our fellow human beings. A self-proclaimed Christian himself, many of the values and viewpoints that Trump represents actually reflect the exact opposite of what Christianity should represent and be the leading advocate in our world for, i.e. peace, compassion, empathy, healing, and love for one’s neighbor.
I believe Trump’s appeal to evangelicals lies mainly in what they see as the rapid moral decline of the American culture and an out of control government that no longer listens to its citizens. A broken immigration system, the continual squeezing of the middle class, last year’s Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage along with the perceived assaults of the government and social progressives on traditional values and on the Christian faith itself has many evangelicals searching for a “savior” to fight back against the tide of secularism that has swept through the nation. I agree that our country is headed in the wrong direction in many respects, but I strongly disagree that this justifies a Christian’s support for Trump.
In their desire to reverse the course of our culture evangelicals are embracing one who represents principles and values that are just as abhorrent to God as any of the things that evangelicals are concerned about. In a time when they should be looking to their Savior for hope and direction, they instead place their faith in an arrogant man who recently confessed that he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he asked for forgiveness. Not once, ever. Could a more astonishingly prideful statement be made?
One of the arguments for supporting Trump that I repeatedly hear evangelicals make is that if we do not support him, we hand victory to the other side, and that will lead to a continuation and perhaps an acceleration of the moral decline of our country. Even if they are right about this, so what. It does not excuse or justify a Christian’s support for someone whose life has represented so much that stands in opposition to what the Scriptures teach about character, morality, and what our attitude should be toward our neighbors, our enemies, and “the least of these”. And, at the end of the day, the differences between Trump and Hillary Clinton as they pertain to social issues that evangelicals care about are really not very distinguishable.
And as for that “moral decline”, we should understand that all the things evangelicals point out as evidence of such are by no means the only factors that are contributing to the overall decline of American culture and standing in the world. Tragically, the Church itself is to blame for being derelict in its duty to live as light before the culture. Many evangelicals have become wrapped up in the prosperity of our nation by desiring and trusting in the things of this world more than we trust in God. We have traded our mission and duty for comfort and convenience, and as a result I personally believe that the Church in America is about to undergo the judgment of God, not unlike Israel did in the time of Jeremiah the prophet. But that is a separate discussion for another time.
As an American, I am grateful for the freedom I have and I honor and respect the sacrifices made by so many so that I can remain free. That said, a Christian’s loyalty is to be first to his Lord, and that means he must be willing to forsake everything in order to follow what Christ expects of him. A Christian is never to surrender his values or compromise his faith for anything, even to save his country. That means while our country continues to march down its ever-accelerating path toward destruction we do not look to someone to save it who so audaciously exemplifies, preaches, and advocates for attitudes and behaviors that are the antithesis of those of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, our duty and obligation is to have nothing to do with the deeds of darkness, but instead to expose them – even if we lose our country, our freedom, and our lives.
So let’s resist the urge to take matters in our own hands and instead hold to the values that we as evangelicals claim to hold. Things never go well when we get ahead of God, but His power is revealed when his people exercise faith in times of great uncertainty and trial. Let’s allow him that opportunity. Now is not the time to panic and abandon hope by turning to a false savior. Now is the time to TRUST in our God, to get our hearts and minds right before him, and to stop worrying so much about who is in control in Washington D.C.
As a footnote to these thoughts I suggest that perhaps this season of turmoil in our nation’s politics is a perfect time for us to re-think what we believe, and to re-calibrate it to what the Scriptures really teach about where we are to place our hope and trust. I believe that a great shaking is coming in the evangelical Church, and the sheep are finally going to be separated from the goats, in a purification process that is sorely needed and long overdue. That is something we should look forward to with both expectant joy and grave seriousness.
The Narrow Gate 
Amen!!
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